Thanks to our friends at Intelligent Blends for taking the time to chat with us. Check out their story below and how they use VicinityFood manufacturing software to streamline their operations and drive growth.

Taking technology to the next level

 

The Situation

Intelligent Blends is a sustainable manufacturer of single-serve and bagged beverages, including coffees, teas, and functional beverages. Established in 2013 and based in San Diego, it produces certified recyclable K-Cups ®, compatible with Nespresso ® capsules, stick packs, biodegradable PLA tea sachets, and bagged and filtered coffee. In addition, Intelligent Blends is also a leader in research and development in formulating the latest and greatest beverage blends. Intelligent Blends onboarded VicinityFood software in late 2018 to help manage the production side of its business, easily integrating it into Microsoft Dynamics GP.

We talked with Brandon Little, Operations Manager, about his experience with VicinityFood’s software tools.

 

The Solution

Prior to the VicinityFood software integration, Intelligent Blends had been using Excel to manage its thousands of formulas, which was challenging with so many work orders and so much growth. VicinityFood delivered a software solution that created more organized production, including helping to maintain:

· Formula management

· Work orders/batches

· Accurate data for better, more detailed reporting

· Quality control

· Materials resource planning

· Revenue forecasting

 

“Vicinity has really helped us to catapult our business intelligence tools, allowing us to pull data into detailed reports that we can speak to on a daily basis. The reporting tools, especially Vicinity View, have helped us improve our business because we can now be proactive vs. reactive, making us able to plan production several months in advance. The features create versatility with our production lines, where we can reference formulas and sales order numbers and plan revenue and forecast more accurately.”

Brandon Little, Operations Manager, Intelligent Blends

The Success

VicinityFood software has enabled Intelligent Blends to be a more advanced technical company. Specifically, Vicinity’s materials resource planning (MRP) tools, that were implemented in late 2019, have allowed Intelligent Blends to fully plan the purchase of raw materials based on production batches that it has in its system, with quality controls to make sure batches are correct.

 

“Vicinity’s technical resources are far above what we were using before. The software features that were set up for us have made a world of difference. On the formula side of our business, the Vicinity production management tool has been unlike any other, from set up to management to post-production. Vicinity is constantly advancing, always looking to improve the end-user experience. Vicinity truly believes its customers are its greatest asset.”

Shop Maud’s Coffee & Tea – Shop Blends

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